Rwandan President Paul Kagame said on Sunday that the man who inspired the film’s hero Rwanda Hotel had returned of his own free will to this country before his arrest, denying his family’s accusations that he had been kidnapped abroad.
Longtime President Kagame detractor Paul Rusesabagina, 66, appeared in Kigali on Monday (September 7) handcuffed and exhibited by police, who accuse him “To have financed and created terrorist groups” determined to overthrow power in Kigali.
According to his family, Mr. Rusesabagina, who has lived in Belgium and the United States since 1996, has never returned on his own to Rwanda, where he is considered a traitor and accused of questioning the genocide of 1994. A To believe him, the Rwandan regime, which is often criticized for using the strong method to silence dissenting voices, had him removed after having sought to intimidate him several times in the past.
In a speech broadcast by state media, President Kagame said that Mr. Rusesabagina had returned of his own accord to Rwanda, where he must be held responsible for acts of terrorism, arson, kidnappings and murder. “Let me remove the word kidnapping because it was not. Rusesabagina will attest to this himself. There was no kidnapping, there was no wrongdoing in the process of his coming here, Kagame said. He arrived on the basis of what he thought he wanted to do and ended up in Kigali. “
According to Mr. Rusesabagina’s adopted daughter, Carine Kanimba, he has disappeared in Dubai. The UAE authorities did not respond to AFP’s requests. But a spokesperson told CNN he left the country legally. “I don’t know how he got to Rwanda. I read information according to which he had boarded a private plane (…) However, he would never have done that of his own will, because he knows that in Rwanda, they want him dead ”said Mme Kanimba to AFP.
“False lawyer”
The film Rwanda Hotel, directed in 2004 by Terry George, describes how Mr. Rusesabagina, a Hutu married to a Tutsi, in 1994 saved more than 1,200 people sheltered in the Hotel des mille Collines in Kigali, of which he was the director, using his influence with the Hutu militiamen.
The genocide left around 800,000 dead between April and July 1994, according to the UN, mainly among the Tutsi minority, but also among moderate Hutus. Mr. Rusesabagina, a moderate Hutu, left Rwanda two years later, expressing concern about the human rights abuses committed in his eyes by the Front patriote rwandais (RPF, in power since the end of the genocide), particularly with regard to the Hutu, and the growing authoritarianism of Mr. Kagame. He left Rwanda in 1996 with other moderates who saw the space for political opposition shrinking rapidly.
But the release of the film Hotel Rwanda, nominated for an Oscar, gave him a new international platform to criticize the power of Kigali, where his image as a hero began to be tarnished. Survivors of the Hotel of a Thousand Hills reproached him for taking advantage of their suffering, claiming that he was not the selfless hero embodied by American actor Don Cheadle. Mr. Rusesabagina’s rhetoric against the RPF and the oppression of the Hutu has become increasingly virulent, to the point of calling for the overthrow of Mr. Kagame, including by force.
President Kagame reiterated his accusations, saying people in the country would tell a “Different story” on the role of Mr. Rusesabagina: “Whether there are people using it in Europe or America, helping him or calling him a hero and a star, there is no problem with that. But the things which have to do with the murder of Rwandans (…) he will have to answer for them. “
President Kagame assured Mr. Rusesabagina would be treated fairly, although his family expressed concerns about his legal defense. Rwandan lawyer David Rugaza said on national television on Sunday that he had been appointed by Mr. Rusesabagina to represent him. “I have met my client, he is in good health and ready to appear”, he said.
Mr. Rusesabagina’s adopted daughter, however, told AFP that Mr. Rugaza “Is a fake lawyer chosen by the people of Kagame”.
